Hueniverse: a colorful artistic exploration through and an homage to the world of hip hop song and lyric.

This was the second duo show featuring Tony Krol and myself, but our first at The Bricks. Hueniverse was meant to be a colorful artistic exploration through and an homage to the world of hip hop song and lyric. With our pieces, we aimed to match the vividness of hip hop lyricism with the most vivid of all art elements, color.

Because art and music are so intertwined in our lives, we wanted to have a live musical component to the event. We lucked out with some supreme Tampa talent taking part. DJ Wally Clark, Jinx (beware, this song WILL get stuck in your brain), Asher and Charles Burns were gracious enough to perform and made the night absolutely perfect. Not only are they solid performers, they are super nice people as well. I can’t thank them enough for offering their time and talent to this event.

I had a huge list of songs/lyrics I wanted to create pieces for, but only got through a small portion of it. There are a few that are “must-do’s” at some point, but the following is the “official” playlist for my series of pieces for this event.

Yeah, hip-hop is a steady friend during our art making process, but there was actually a little more to the story behind what sparked the initial theme idea…

——————————————————————————————————————————

Tony Krol and I had our first conversation, or first full sentences, back in 2012 at a Bricks art event. It was an awkward encounter, but one of the most honest I had had with any person in a while. Shortly after that, we were slated to have a duo art event and had to get together and discuss specifics. Where did we meet? The Bricks. Again it was awkward, but pleasant. He talked about himself and I ate, then we parted ways. He rode home, I went home and cried because I felt like I had been conned into a date. “How dare he”, I thought, meeting with me, talk almost incessantly about his work history, then pays for my food. I was a grown-ass woman with my own money and interesting stories. What a typical man, right?

I stuck it out and we worked together on that event. During our work sessions, I learned he wasn’t doing the typical man thing. He was just being nice and was nervous. A shy guy and nice, I was floored! On one particular work night, I “lost” my phone in his house. By lost I mean I put it somewhere smart and forgot. Anyhow, he called it so I could find it. The look on his face when he heard my ringtone was priceless. As I grabbed my phone he seemed confused and shocked that I had a Method Man ringtone. Of course I did. I also had a Chino Y Nacho ringtone, nothing very impressive or cool, but for some reason he found it fascinating. About 2 months after that first collaborative event, we were married.

Roughly a year after we were married, he confessed something to me. He told me that during the night of our first real conversation at The Bricks, he had told people he would marry me. Had he told me that back in 2012, I would have laughed at him. Marriage wasn’t something I had ever really wanted or dreamed of. He didn’t either, so I guess it’s pretty flattering. Cut to 2016 and we are scheduled for another duo show, this time at The Bricks. We were trying to figure out a theme and somehow I’m hit with a new relationship revelation. He said the reason he married me was 90% because of my ringtone. What the hell?! My ringtone? Here I’m listening to all the “you’re talented, smart, gorgeous, blah, blah, blah” for 3 years and, come to find out, that’s only 10% of why he wanted to legally make it difficult to get rid of each other. I mean, I know if he didn’t think I was all of those adjectives the ringtone wouldn’t have mattered, but the news still came as a surprise. It seemed pretty obvious what we had to do, a hip hop themed art show at the place where it all began.